SUMMARY 

• Your lack of confidence certainly isn’t helping you, and it’s probably why you’re not as far ahead in life as you’d like to be. Here are 6 principles to help build your confidence.
• Number one: Confidence is something that can be built, it’s not something that you simply have. We are all born the same. Nobody’s born with confidence. We’re all born clean slate. So everything is learnable, including confidence as well.
• The number two confidence builder is all around learning, up-skilling. Taking your game up to the next level. If you want to build your confidence, you have to take some time to.
• The number three thing that you could be doing to up your confidence game or develop more confidence in a particular area is to ask the experts. There’s experts out there for everything.
• Number four, if you want to build your confidence, you have to get comfortable pushing yourself just outside your comfort zone. Confidence doesn’t happen staying in your comfort zone. 
• The number five thing that you can do to build confidence is anticipate the obstacles. You’d be surprised you could probably anticipate 70, 80% of the obstacles likely to appear before you.
• The number six thing that you can do to build your confidence is develop an action attitude, an orientation towards taking action.
• So in summary, there’s lots of ways that you can be building your confidence. Once again, confidence is something that you build, it’s not something that you’re born with, it’s not something that you simply have.

TRANSCRIPT

Your lack of confidence certainly isn’t helping you, and it’s probably why you’re not as far ahead in life as you’d like to be. But here’s the thing: confidence is something that can be built, it’s not something that you simply have.

Hi, my name is Eric Partaker, and I’m on a mission to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in business and life. And today I want to take you through some simple things that you can do to build more confidence in your life.

Now, confidence is a big thing for me because it’s not something that came naturally to me. When I was a young kid, I remember never being confident. I was the kid who wouldn’t get picked to play on the sports teams. I was the kid who was trying to do my best in school but always felt like I was just outside the best. And it had a knock-on effect on my confidence. I felt like I was always the home of the second best, never of the best.

And that also went into my early career. In my early career, I remember thinking that I wasn’t as good as everyone around me, that I was a bit of an impostor. But over time, I learned the skills that I’m going to be teaching you today about how to build confidence. Because once again, confidence is something that you build, it’s not something that you simply have. And that is a segue to our very first principle.

We are all born the same. Nobody’s born with confidence. We’re all born clean slate. So everything is learnable, including confidence as well. Confidence is something that you can learn. It’s something that you can build over time. I’ve certainly done it. I’ve helped so many entrepreneurs do the same, and it’s absolutely something that you can do as well. You’re not any different. You’re not unique. You’re not like, I’m the only person on the planet who’s incapable of building confidence. That’s not the case. So you can learn to build your confidence as well. Everything is learnable, including confidence.

The number two confidence builder is all around learning, up-skilling. Taking your game up to the next level. If you want to build your confidence, you have to take some time to, within whatever area you want to become more confident in. What are the important skills that you should be learning? Is there a course that you could be taking? How can you develop your knowledge in that area? Could you be reading a book? Could you become more comfortable with the topics? How could you become a bit more knowledgeable, wiser on whatever it is that you’re trying to become more confident in?

The number three thing that you could be doing to up your confidence game or develop more confidence in a particular area is to ask the experts. There’s experts out there for everything. An expert is simply somebody who is super knowledgeable or skilled within an area, and there are experts everywhere for everything. And if there’s something that you want to become more confident in, reach out to somebody who is proficient in that area.

I’ve done this loads of times throughout my career. I’ve reached out to people who are experts within a space. When I was building a chain of restaurants, I remember reaching out to experts in the culinary arts, experts around flavor, experts around restaurant operations and design, because I wanted to jumpstart my development. I wanted to have a leapfrog moment where I was tapping into their wisdom and expertise, and getting that injection of knowledge. And that builds your confidence. Suddenly, what you don’t know becomes something that you suddenly do know, and you have access to in terms of skills and capability. So reach out and ask the experts out there.

Number four, if you want to build your confidence, you have to get comfortable pushing yourself just outside your comfort zone. Confidence doesn’t happen staying in your comfort zone. You don’t build your confidence by continuing to do the things that you’ve always done. You build confidence by stepping just outside that. Five, 10%, whatever it is just beyond your current capabilities. You should be trying and building and seeing how that goes and learning from your mistakes. And as you do that, you continually take further and further steps, becoming more and more confident in whatever area that you’re trying to develop.

So think again, from a comfort zone point of view, are you playing in your comfort zone or are you stepping just outside? Or are you trying to do too much too quickly? Because if you’re trying to do too much too quickly, then you’ll go beyond your capability. You want to go, literally, just 5% beyond what you’re currently capable of doing. And keep adding those 5% increments, and that’s how you’ll build your confidence over time. Go just outside your comfort zone, just on the perimeter, and keep pushing a little bit further each time.

I’ve done this so many times in the various businesses that I’ve worked with. From when I was helping build up Skype in its early days, from the chain of restaurants that I’ve referenced before that I built, and even my current coaching business. I’m always stepping just outside my comfort zone and using that as a way to build confidence over time.

So, the question to you right now is, where are you playing safe? Where are you staying within your comfort zone, and could you step just outside? Or where are you trying to overextend? And maybe that’s why you’re not confident, because you’re trying to do too much too quickly.

The number five thing that you can do to build confidence is anticipate the obstacles. Nobody likes surprises, especially when they’re nasty surprises that knock us over. But sometimes those surprises didn’t need to be surprises, right? If we would have asked ourselves before beginning a new mission or a new project or embarking on a new endeavor, ask ourselves: What are the likely obstacles that I’ll face here, what are the things that could get in my way? And how might I circumvent or get around those obstacles? What are the resolutions or the solutions to those challenges?

Think about that in advance. You’d be surprised that you could probably anticipate 70 or 80% of the obstacles likely to appear before you, and think about solutions or ways of tackling them in advance. That develops your confidence, because you feel a bit more prepared on the journey. And when things get shaken up, you think to yourself, ah, I anticipated this might happen. And you’re more prepared and you’re more ready to take action and continue on.

The number six thing that you can do to build your confidence is develop an action attitude, an orientation towards taking action. Confident people are those who are continually pushing and trying that next thing. It’s action that creates confidence over time. Acting more and more courageously each and every day is what builds confidence. So where are you not taking action? And interestingly enough, is that also an area where you don’t feel that you’re as confident as you’d like to be?

And then the next question is: What action could you be taking? And is that action something that could, combined with one of the principles previously discussed, is that action, something that lies just outside your comfort zone? Not too far out, but just outside. So focus on action. Action builds confidence over time. Get into an action attitude, an action mindset, an action orientation. What action can I take today? How can I show up boldly? How can I progress my mission, my project, whatever it is that you may be working on.

So in summary, there’s lots of ways that you can be building your confidence. Once again, confidence is something that you build, it’s not something that you’re born with, it’s not something that you simply have. And that, in fact, is the first principle: remembering that everything is learnable. Nobody’s born with confidence.

The second principle was, if you want to build your confidence in an area, make sure you’re up-skilling. Learn. Read some books, gather some knowledge to make yourself feel more confident in that area. Number three is reach out and ask the experts. Most certainly there’s somebody who already has confidence in this arena, in this area that you’re trying to develop. Ask them for advice. Reach out to the experts. You’ll be surprised at how much help is out there willing to extend it’s hand to you, if you simply ask.

Number four, push just outside your comfort zone. There’s no confidence building that happens by playing safe. You’ve got to go just beyond what you’re comfortable doing. Number five, remember to anticipate the obstacles ahead of time. You could probably anticipate 70 to 80% of the nasty things that might appear on your path. And by doing that, you can think of how you would handle those beforehand. And number six, become a man or a woman of action. Take action, have an orientation of acting boldly day in and day out. And the action itself will create more confidence in your life.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website at ericpartaker.com, you’ll also be able to subscribe to my weekly insights newsletter.